Science Night Live to include 'Light' show, 'Star Trek' talk

Science Night Live, the adults-only evening at Orlando Science Center, is set to return Saturday. Among the features will be stargazing, hands-on experiments, big-screen films and the regular exhibits of the museum. The traveling exhibit “Playing With Light,” which could put visitors into “Mission: Impossible” mode, also will be available.

The guest speaker for the event, set for Oct. 7, will be Rupert Meghnot, founder and CEO of Burnout Game Ventures. His presentation, “9 Leadership Characteristics from ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’” is included with admission to Science Night Live and will be offered at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. (Science Night Live runs from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.)

Food and adult beverages will be available for purchase from Hard Rock Cafe. (Science Night Live is a 21-and-up occasion.)

“Playing With Light” features 22 immersive stations with lasers, mirrors and other tools that show off the power of light.

The exhibit is loaded with interactivity, starting with an entrance tunnel stocked with 20,000 LEDs that react to movement. Nearby is a room with laser lights that form an acrobatic obstacle course. You may have seen this scene in a heist film: Touch a beam and an alarm goes off.

“That’s a really fun piece,” says JJ Leissing, director of visitor experience. (During a recent walkthrough, we watched both adults and a little girl in a princess gown crawl around in this space.)

The “Light” exhibit includes mirrors that form a kaleidoscope of your image, hands-on filtering experiences, a screen with frozen shadows, a flexible mirror (check out the mechanism in the back), large lenses, a spectroscope and more.